www.billnelson.com

Only to agree with the sentiments posted here, I want to thank Bill for the Listening Notes. Have always found these to be a welcomed addition to the entire experience! Where can we find this sort of personalized guide to an artist's vision, save for here at Dreamsville, with our Architect Bill? Waiting, wondering...

Cheers,
Roger

Do you dream at all?

Whenever I'm asleep, but it would be boring to limit one's self to that

I find this very much to my own experience and also what the myth of Orpheus teaches us about musicians. Musicians inhabit two worlds and Orpheus, as the quintessential musician, descends from our world into Hates (the underworld) to bring up his love Eurydice. He fails to bring Eurydice back to this world and she remains a shade in the underworld. What this says is musicians (artists) can only give us a representation of beauty -- a shade -- and not the real thing; they can only give us an imitation, something removed from the reality of beauty. Still, like Orpheus, they are compelled to go back into the underworld (perhaps representing their subconscious) and try to retrieve the thing they most desperately love. This usually ends in a tragic life because this world without beauty is unbearable and, like drug addicts, they want to go back and relive that first experience of consuming love. Orpheus died tragically at the hands to the Bacchi and his body was ripped apart and thrown into the Aegean Sea. This is almost suggestive of schizophrenia.

I think Bill paints a very beautiful picture and imagination is truly the ticket to ride. I am most curious of his Orpheus in Ultraland CD to hear how he sees Orpheus. In today's world we think we are so sophisticated with our scientific jargon, especially since the ancient Greeks didn't have words like "subconscious," etc. But, to my mind, the Greeks were still able to describe the character or "archetype" of a person -- in this case a musician -- through a story or myth. There was a wisdom or knowledge that was meant to be conferred. If you become like Orpheus and, through pride of your art, think that you can transgress the gods (or infinitely charm them) -- tragedy will befall you. This, in an unromantic way, tells me art is not everything (or even the highest thing) and we have to be aware and in control of our emotions -- that they don't run away with us through art.

In Plato, Orpheus was described as a coward: if he truly loved Eurydice he would have stayed with her in the underworld. It is one of the greatest mysteries why Orpheus looked back at her just before arriving back to this world. It was as if his backward glance froze him in time -- in other words, the past was what he had to look forward to in his future. He never developed as a character. Still there is something noble about him and only few others heroes were able to conquer death (able to return from Hates). In the end, Love does conquer Death (if we believe Christianity and Cocteau), and though we have one foot in this world and one foot in the grave, imagination allows us a sneak peak of what's in store...

Well spoken, Bill and I agree!

The role of art and music in our lives, our society, and our education systems cannot be over-estimated. They are an important reflection of our thoughts and emotions in an ongoing timeline.

Tom

I agree that we are flawed creatures and that perfection of human nature is an illusion. But I think humans know, however vaguely, that there is something else. The "colourful flowers" are suggestive of something outside this grey world, suggestive of something perfect. I mean just the idea of perfection is not something to be found in this imperfect world. Where did we get it from? It seems that the visible (the imperfect) points to the invisible (the perfect) just like your colourful flowers against a grey background leads to the mystical.

The same is true with numbers. We use numbers everyday and yet they are not of this world: not material or experienced by our five senses. We don't see 2+2 walking hand in hand down the street or know what they smell and sound like or anything physical about them. In fact, our language is filled with words that can't be reduced down to some material basis. We have words like "creativity" "consciousness" and “soul” that are meaningful but don't seem to be based on anything material. Flowers are material and so are humans, but we are more than just materials – we are more than just bowls of chemical soup. We have the capacity to touch upon or experience something immaterial and beautiful. The human reality is complex and mysterious... and not everything about it can be reduced down to the material world.

We live in two worlds and sometimes proponents of the material world want to reduce everything down to it: atoms and molecules, natural laws, etc. If they can't see God in the sky with their telescope or see our soul under a microscope, then God and soul don't exist. Some words they can't relegate to the trash pile, words like consciousness. And if they can't explain consciousness as some grouping of atoms and molecules in the brain then they ask us to take a rain check on it... they ask us to have FAITH that they will be able to explain it in the future (and you thought faith was only used in religion!)

Perhaps the greatest miracle and gift given to us is free will. Science can't account for it because in the scientific world there is no freedom -- everything conforms to the laws of nature. For example, water can't one day choose to boil at a different temperature or a falling rock will decide to fall up instead of down. Humans have this gift of freedom and it gets us in trouble. Orpheus broke the rules and got in trouble. We all get into trouble -- we all are less than perfect and we are interesting. We can almost look at the word "interesting" as the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." That is our human condition.

I find it interesting that art is a vehicle to the mystical and maybe it should be the other way around as well: the mystical is a vehicle to art. Art is a gift, so I assume there is a gift giver. As Prometheus (another myth) gave humans fire (light) to make things known, so are there the Muses that give humans artistic abilities and ideas to make other things known. That is a reason I believe modesty should prevail, that artists should be modest, though they rarely are. Orpheus was immodest and, indeed, an interesting person...

Good stuff, Maynard !. Speaking of Eggs and Chickens .... did we come from some heavenly realm or did we invent that all in our biocomputer
subroutines ? Do we 'make' music or is musicmaking always an imperfect, reflective expression of something far beyond the realms of normal waking thought (but not at all far from Dreamsville) ?.

Maybe such exlusionary distinctions are mostly an invention , and All Things are as they are , often (but by no means always) independent of how we percieve them ? . Earth is Earth and Heavens are Heavens, and they look different most of the time , but how do we know that much about anything , since time and space were once as next to nothing as you can get ? I lean towards the idea that everything exists first as an idea (Hermetic), dreams in the mind of God (Christian) , and/or Universal Mind .

But since we're here blundering around the words and all, it's hard to separate the self-aware biomass factor from the equations . We can invent a few billion ways of looking at Life, the Universe, and Everything,all equally valid (to their owners) , all equally inaccurate , and somewhere over the rainbow lies .... rainbows...all the way up . Turtles all the way down and rainbows all the way up

Personal biomass must attend to worldly duties now; back over to you Z

Crap ! I was supposed to work this in : are we rain that randomly falls or do we "call the thunder" as Bill sings ? ..and again, maybe the distinctions of separation aren't ultimately real . Maybe it doesn't even have a beginning or end , and the dream and waking (and the rest)are parts of the greater whole . Every egg has a chicken inside, and every chicken (every other chicken, anyway ) an egg . Winged eggs. Chickens with featherless ,white, round bodies. Couldn't possibly be an original idea....

Quoted for truth.